“But in the wake of 'Bullet,' all the guys wanted to know was, 'How's it doing? How's it selling?' How to tell them I didn't give a flying fuck how it was doing in the marketplace, that what I cared about was how it was doing in the reader's heart?”― Stephen King

“Writing is hard work, not magic. It begins with deciding why you are writing and whom you are writing for. What is your intent? What do you want the reader to get out of it? What do you want to get out of it. It's also about making a serious time commitment and getting the project done.”― Suze Orman

Thursday, March 27, 2014

I really enjoyed this book. It is one of my favorite genres and settings, a post apocalyptic dystopia.

This story follows the life and times of a woman called Make Peace. I love strong, smart, competent, female characters. This one is all of that and a total bad-ass as well.

One of the things I liked the most about this book is what it didn't tell you. A lot of dystopian novels feel like they have to explain in minute detail the events the led up to the fall and just won't rest until they read you that last scientists diary or watch the last video log entry. This story hinted and then trusted that the reader was smart enough.

These characters are too busy trying to find a good pair of winter boots to even care at all.

Marcel Theroux did a good job telling the story in the first person. He did a good job showing me how Make Peace felt in stead of telling me. A trap I often see in first person stories.

This book I got from Audible.com and listened to it during my commute. It was narrated by:Yelena Schmulenson and she did an excellent job as well. The unabridged version was 8 hours and 44 minutes long. Only 4 days commuting... sigh.

Friday, March 14, 2014

My friend OldNFO finally found something to do with all his spare time besides causing trouble!"The Bad Guys Don't Stand a Chance Texas rancher and lawman John Cronin
knows what it means to be tough. A decorated Vietnam vet with
connections to law enforcement agencies all around the world, he’s
thwarted smugglers and drug plots across the globe with more than a few
narrow escapes. Whether it’s a sniper competition or teaching the feds a
thing or two about police work, Cronin doesn’t hesitate to pull the
trigger. Of course, this slow-talking lawman’s biggest challenge yet
might be when his granddaughter Jesse falls in love with a Marine. When
drug smugglers stir up trouble in Cronin’s backyard and try to kill
Jesse and her new beau, all hell breaks loose, and Cronin and his
granddaughter are just the people to set things right."

Thursday, March 13, 2014

Yesterday I was chatting with my friend Tom about a favorite TV show, The Walking Dead.

I have an outline for a Zombie Apocalypse novel. I was telling Tom how doomed he was because of his lack of weapons and the place he lives. At least he is reasonably fit for being 54 years old. He still plays soccer.

We ended up creating a character based on him that actually was a great study in back story.

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

I just watched the season finale of True Detective on
HBO. I hear the show actually crashed the HBOGO website. It is a really
great but totally whacked show. It's very original and extremely adult
in themes and images.

Sunday, March 9, 2014

I try to create sympathy for my characters, then turn the monsters loose. - Stephen King

Prose is architecture, not interior decoration. - Ernest Hemingway

It’s none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way. - Ernest Hemingway

Most writers regard the truth as their most valuable possession, and therefore are most economical in its use. - Mark Twain

And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name. - William Shakespeare (from A Midsummer Night’s Dream)

If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn’t matter a damn how you write.- Somerset Maugham

To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.- Herman Melville

It is perfectly okay to write garbage—as long as you edit brilliantly. - C. J. Cherryh

It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous.- Robert Benchley

Any man who keeps working is not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old-fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he’ll eventually make some kind of career for himself as writer. - Ray Bradbury

A blank piece of paper is God’s way of telling us how hard it to be God. - Sidney Sheldon

Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short. - Henry David Thoreau

If you have other things in your life—family, friends, good productive day work—these can interact with your writing and the sum will be all the richer. - David Brin

My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying. - Anton Chekhov

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

There are two kinds of female characters that I love in the fiction I write.

Females that are strong, bright, competent, fit, beautiful and very well armed.

Females that are treacherous vipers.

I also like to show the process in which they are formed.

One of the things I love in fiction is watching the transition of a character. Walter White in Breaking Bad comes to mind as a slow transition character.--It is the classic story of how you boil a frog.

Monday, March 3, 2014

I went to the RSA 2014 conference this week. They had an "Innovation
Lab" that had a lot of cool stuff. They had a wall where they "imagined
the future". It had lots of predictions about technology and it's social
implications. It also had...

Someone stuck this card in just to see if we were still paying attention.